Customer Experience Investments are on the Rise, According to New Temkin Group Research

WABAN, Mass., Feb. 7, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --A new research report published by Temkin Group, CX Expectations and Plans for 2017, finds that large companies are planning to spend more time and energy on their customer experience (CX) efforts in 2017. This is the seventh annual study, which this year is based on a survey of 165 large companies in December 2016.

Looking back at the previous year, 87% of respondents report that their CX efforts had a positive business impact in 2017. That's an increase from 79% in 2015. As a result, companies plan to invest more on their CX efforts this year.

In 2017, two-thirds of companies plan to increase their spending on customer experience and the percentage of companies planning to increase their CX headcount is nine times larger than those who are planning to cut back.

According to Bruce Temkin, Managing Partner of Temkin Group, "There's a lot of momentum around customer experience, as large companies are very bullish about driving business results through better customer experience."

Here are some other highlights from the research:

Sixty-four percent of companies that report at least moderately positive results from their 2016 CX efforts had better financial performance than their peers, compared with only 44% of other firms.

The percentage of respondents who looked ahead and said that CX will be significantly more important in the following year grew from 40% in Q4 2015 to 45% in Q4 2016.

The percentage of respondents who expect CX spending to increase in the following year grew from 57% in Q4 2015 to 67% in Q4 2016.

The percentage of respondents who expect to increase their full-time CX staff in the following year grew from 37% in Q4 2015 to 44% in Q4 2016 (only 5% expect to cut back their staffing this year).

Spending growth is expected to be strongest for VoC software, predictive analytics, and experience design agencies.

Web and mobile will remain the most important channels of focus in 2017, while social media experiences decline in importance.

Customer insights and analytics remains the most important CX activity.

Companies are planning to increase their use of CX metrics to drive compensation across all types of employees.

More than half of respondents expect to increase CX training with customer-facing employees.

About Temkin Group: Temkin Group is widely recognized as a leading customer experience research and consulting firm. Many of the world's largest brands rely on its insights and advice to steer their transformational journeys. Temkin Group combines customer experience thought leadership with a deep understanding of the dynamics of organizations to help accelerate results. Rather than layering on cosmetic changes, Temkin Group helps companies embed practices within their culture by building four critical competencies: Purposeful Leadership, Employee Engagement, Compelling Brand Values, and Customer Connectedness. The firm's ongoing research identifies leading and emerging best practices across a wide range of activities for engaging the hearts and minds of customers, employees, and partners. For more information, contact Bruce Temkin at 617-916-2075 or send an email to 145063@email4pr.com.

About Bruce Temkin: Bruce is widely recognized as a customer experience visionary and is a CX Transformist and Managing Partner of Temkin Group. He is also the author of a very popular blog, Customer Experience Matters. Prior to forming Temkin Group, he was a VP at Forrester Research for 12 years, where he led their CX practice and created the CX Index, and was the most-read analyst for 13 consecutive quarters. Bruce is a highly demanded speaker and regularly quoted in the press. He is also the co-founder and Emeritus Chair of the Customer Experience Professionals Association.

Customer Experience Matters is a registered trademark of Temkin Group.